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made use of by Joel, because, with the exception of the casual allusion in Joe 3:19, he does not treat of the judgment upon Edom at all. The contents of Oba 1:1-9 also show the reason why no allusion whatever is made in these verses to Israel and Jerusalem. The judgment predicted here was not to be executed by either Israel or Judah, but by the nations. Graf's assertion, that Oba 1:7 contains an allusion to totally different circumstances from those referred to in Oba 1:10., as the verses mentioned relate to altogether disproportionate things, is decidedly incorrect. So also is Ewald's opinion, that half our present Obadiah, viz., Oba 1:1-10, and Oba 1:17 and Oba 1:18, “clearly points to an earlier prophet in contents, language, and colour.” Caspari has already replied to this as follows: “We confess, on the contrary, that we can discover no difference in colour and language between Oba 1:1-9 and Oba 1:10-21. The latter has its ἅπαξ λεγόμενα and its rare words just like the former (compare חגוי סלע Oba 1:3, נבעוּ Oba 1:6, מצפּניו Oba 1:6, מזור Oba 1:7, קטל Oba 1:9, in the first paragraph; and נכרו Oba 1:12, תּשׁלחנה Oba 1:13, פּרק Oba 1:14, לעוּ Oba 1:16, in the second); and precisely the same liveliness and boldness which distinguished the first part of the prophecy, prevail in the second also. Not a single later word, nor a single form of more recent date, is met with to indicate the later origin of the second part.” Moreover, it is impossible to discover any well-established analogy in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament to support this hypothesis.
The attempt made by Caspari, Hengstenberg, and others, to reconcile the opinion, that Obadiah alludes in Oba 1:11. to the Chaldean destruction of Jerusalem, with the fact that Jeremiah has made use of our book of Obadiah in his prophecy against Edom, which was uttered in the reign of Jehoiakim, by the assumption that Obadiah is not describing something that has already happened, but giving a prophetic picture of the future, is wrecked on the wording of the verses in question. When Obadiah threatens Edom with shame and destruction on account of its wickedness towards its brother Jacob (Oba 1:10), and then describes this wickedness in preterites - “On the day of thy standing opposite when strangers had come into his gates and cast the lot upon Jerusalem” (Oba 1:11); and, “As ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so will all the heathen drink,” etc. (Oba 1:16) - no one would understand these preterites as used